Three months today, poppets. I think I will hate the sixth day of every month for the rest of my life.

I've wanted to put a cheerful spin on things, but it doesn't come, you know? Why lie? The holidays beat the crap out of me.

On Boxing Day, a group of ballsacks opened fire in front of a Footlocker downtown. Injuries abounded, and a fifteen-year old girl died. A few days later, when her name was released, I read that one of her neighbours, though he had no idea that the family was connected to the much reported incident, had figured something bad had happened because of the terrible screaming he heard coming from the house.

It was the screaming that got me. I completely understand the screaming. I've stayed away from television over the last three months, because they keep getting it wrong. The CSIs and the Law & Orders and ER... I'm watching mothers claim their children's bodies, and men watching their wives flatline through emergency room windows... Ladylike tears with tiny dabs of tissue, and manly faces set in stoic lines; it's frustrating, you know? They're getting it wrong, all wrong. Where in the hell is all the screaming? Where's the pulling of hair and the beating of chests? I mean, I'm not crazy, right? It's not just because we're Italian, is it?

Anyway. It's just television. It doesn't matter. (And with that, a thousand advertising executives started pulling their hair and beating their chests.)

* * *

Oh, it's not all bad. There are good moments - there will always be good moments. I've got a new set of airline tickets in my hot little hands, and I've had some truly fantastic meals in the last couple of weeks. I've registered for what looks like a very interesting seminar next week, and I've been to the gym several times this year already and and and and...

It's just so bizarre. I fill my days, but it's like it's all happening in the background. Christmas feels like it never came around, and my trip to London feels like a year ago, and the day Frankie died happened this morning and yesterday and the day before that and an hour from now. Three months have passed. When moviemakers want to show the passage of time, they may film a house with several sunrises and several sunsets happening in fast-forward motion. That's what this feels like. The passage of time and the activities that fill my days are just something that's happening in the background.